The Hampshire Gooner
Well here we are ladies and gentleman just a few hours away from the start of the new Premier League season. How are we all feeling about our team’s chances for the upcoming campaign? Pretty grim I would imagine the overall answer to be.
If the current rumours are to be believed then by the time we kick off against Newcastle on Saturday afternoon we will have lost our current captain and second highest goal scorer from last season for total transfer fees ranging from £50-60m. Now this is all well and good as these two players have clearly wanted to leave for some time now so we are better off selling them on for good money and re-investing that money in fresh blood for the upcoming season. I have no qualms about either player wanting to leave or the fact that they are finally being allowed to leave for decent transfer fees recouped.
What I do have a problem with is why it has taken three months of inactivity in the transfer market for us to finally allow them to leave hours before the season kicks off for real. Why wasn’t all this sorted out months ago just as last season ended? We are now left in the ridiculous situation where we are short of quality players for the most important games of our new season (Udinese, Liverpool and Man Utd)
Is this not completely amateurish from the top people at the club? Why did AW come out all those weeks ago and speak about ‘not allowing both players to leave as it makes it hard to convince people that you are still a big club’? Why did he say he would ‘rather lose the £20m transfer fee next year than let Samir leave to join up with another top English team’ when it now appears the opposite to be true? Why wrangle with Barcelona for what feels like centuries over the transfer fee for Cesc when in the end the fee payable seems pretty similar to what was offered to us last summer?
The positive stance would have been to have sold both players earlier on in the summer as soon as it became apparent that both men wanted out and for us to have already bedded in the replacements during pre-season. We now are left in the position of scrambling around for adequate replacements and will be held to ransom to pay whatever the likes of Valencia want us to pay for players like Mata etc.
Apparently a top source from the club has stated today that the whole fee recouped on Cesc will be re-invested in buying in new players. What they failed to stipulate was over how long a period of time this will happen in. Three weeks? Six months? Ten years? Will the revenue from the Samir sale also be used or will it sit in the bank account along with the Toure and Adebayor money we received from City a couple of summers ago? So far this summer we have spent around £10m on Gervinho and I would estimate a maximum of £8m upfront for Chamberlain. The £15m fee reported in the media will surely have been made up of various add-ons that may well never materialise so let’s be fair and call it £20m in total so far including Jenkinson. We have recouped a minimum of £7m from the sale of our number one left back Gael Clichy and a reported £1.5m from the sale of the young and talented JET to Ipswich. So far then a net outlay of around £11.5m has been spent this summer.
If we then bring in £55m from the sales of Cesc and Samir as anticipated that then leaves us a war chest of a minimum of £43.5m. You then need to add on any other sales as it looks likely that NB52 will be offloaded to anyone that wants him and none other than Emmanuel Eboue also looks likely to be saying adios anytime we can find a willing buyer. Can anyone reading this article really see AW splashing around £50m in the coming fortnight or so?
In reality are we not more than likely to hear comments coming out of AW’s mouth in the near future like ‘if we bought in a replacement for Cesc it would in effect be killing the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Emmanuel Frimpong’? Which does beg the question - is Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain the perceived replacement for Samir Nasri? Why buy in the new Theo when you are not that bothered about keeping the original. It is a bit like buying a replica of a painting when you are not sure about even liking the original. Is the current first team squad photograph not starting to slowly resemble a class room picture for a second year Montessori nursery school class?
Also why do we take 10 weeks of the summer to then go in with an even lower offer than last summer for Jagielka of Everton? Does it really take people at our club 10 weeks to manage to pick up a telephone or send a simple fax? We have clearly been found wanting time and time again for muscle and for players that have that much needed been there and done it all before winning mentality. What do we come up with in response to this situation as a club? We get Jenkinson, Chamberlain and Mr Miyaichi from The Karate Kid with a combined age of 23 months between them and zero trophies. Can any of the senior players at our club take things seriously anymore with this type of signing becoming the norm over recent seasons?
I watched the game on TV the other week against Thierry Henry’s New York Red Bulls and I must say I was bored to death throughout the entire game. In my opinion we were dire. The result against Benfica leaves me with no doubt that we will struggle grimly to get past Udinese over two legs regardless of the fact that they have lost some of their top players this summer. In my own opinion Newcastle are now a pretty poor Premier League side but we will do well to come away with a point and the games against Liverpool and Man Utd simply do not look overly winnable to me right now. This is not being negative it is simply an honest appraisal from a loyal fan who knows a things or two about the game after supporting his side loyally since the age of six.
My father has supported The Arsenal all of his life and he is now 64 years old. He said to me the other day that he has never felt so negative about a new season starting as he does right now. This feeling seems to be a widespread one as tickets for the early games of the season have not sold well at all in comparison to previous seasons. The Liverpool game which is a category A encounter went to red members and took days to sell out after the red members got the chance to buy seats. The Udinese match is already on general sale as not enough red members took up the option to go to this now vital game. How long will the Swansea game take to sell out as I can see this and many other EPL games going on general sale this season.
The question then needs to be asked if many games continue to hit general sale status as predicted why bother as fans forking out the vastly inflated membership prices that the club has made us pay this season? The amount of Liverpool tickets that have now gone back on sale via the ticket exchange also makes you think that a number of people must have season tickets these days that simply do not feel the need to currently attend any of the games. Is the general feeling amongst season ticket holders one of let’s keep the season ticket going as to not worry further down the line about the availability of one and simply sell on our seat every game at a small loss and hope that over the next few seasons things get more interesting again and you then feel the desire to attend on a more regular basis?
The answer to all this for me is a clear one. AW needs to get his moth riddled cheque book out and this time don’t sign the cheques just to bring in yet another unproven 17 year old winger. Sign the cheques now for a tall domineering centre half and worthy replacements for the departing Cesc and Samir. I feel strongly that AW also has to take full responsibility for the reasons why Cesc and Samir have been so desperate to leave in recent times. Learn your lessons Arsene and move with the times otherwise just simply move on out of the door of the club.
